Charles Lamb

He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides.

Things in books' clothing.

Sunday itself—that unfortunate failure of a holyday as it too often proved, what with my sense of its fugitiveness, and over-care to get the greatest quantity of pleasure out of it ...

Presents, I often say, endear absents.

For with G. D., to be absent from the body is sometimes (not to speak profanely) to be present with the Lord.

If peradventure, Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the golden years of thy life—thy shining youth—in the irksome confinement of an office; to have thy prison days prolonged through middle age down to decrepitude and silver hairs, without hope of release or respite; to have lived to forget that there are such things as holidays, or to remember them but as the prerogatives of childhood; then, and then only, will you be able to appreciate my deliverance.

[Of Coleridge] His face when he repeats his verses hath its ancient glory, an Archangel a little damaged.

Romeo, Romeo!' said she, 'wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father, and refuse thy name, for my sake; or if thou wilt not, be but my sworn love, and I no longer will be a Capulet.

bade her to doubt the stars were fire, and to doubt that the sun did move, to doubt truth to be a liar, but never to doubt that he loved;

Martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold!

Contented with little yet wishing for more

A good-natured woman...which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor.

The mixture spoils two good things, as Charles Lamb (Elia) used to say of brandy and water.

Look upward, Feeble Ones! look up, and trust
That He, who lays this mortal frame in dust,
Still hath the immortal Spirit in His keeping
In Jesus' sight they are not dead, but sleeping

Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.